Line #4 Main/RussiaTakesOverTheWorld


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4	[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cncra2_install_gww2.png]]]]
5
6	->''"The Soviet Union will overtake America, and then wave 'bye-bye'."''
7	-->-- '''UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev''' (to then-U.S. Vice President UsefulNotes/RichardNixon)
8
9	A popular trope in AlternateHistory stories or those set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. Russia is a global superpower and could possibly take over the Earth, at least in fiction.
10
11	Worries about this happening were part of the RedScare movement during the 1950s. For Cold War versions, this will invariably be a WorldWarIII scenario. If they succeed, this will result in the world becoming a CommieLand. For the post-Cold War period, the writers will have to MakeTheBearAngryAgain.
12
13	Expect to see Russia marching into the InvadedStatesOfAmerica at some point. [[RussiaCalledTheyWantAlaskaBack Taking back Alaska]] may be a motivation.
14
15	Subtrope of TakeOverTheWorld. Compare AmericaTakesOverTheWorld, ChinaTakesOverTheWorld and JapanTakesOverTheWorld. Unlike those examples, Russia almost always uses its military to take over the world instead of via cultural or economic hegemony.
16
17	'''Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease''' This trope is only for fictional portrayals of Russia and the USSR, not for commentary on the real world.
18	----
19	!!Examples
20
21	[[foldercontrol]]
22
23	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
24	* ''Manga/Moscow2160'': In 2160, Soviet Union is as strong as ever, beating United States in Moon landing and keep a Cold War going.
25	[[/folder]]
26
27	[[folder:Comic Books]]
28	* ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'':
29	** The story ''Invasion!'' explores this idea. Written in the 1980s at the end of the cold war, it explored the idea of a Russian invasion and takeover of Western Europe and Britain. (The Russians were thinly disguised as the "Volgans".) This was expanded into the later graphic novel series ''ComicBook/{{Savage}}''.
30	** A closer example is ComicBook/NikolaiDante. In the 27th century, a resurgent FeudalFuture Imperial Russia dominates Earth and a good chunk of interstellar space.
31	* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In the Creator/{{Elseworlds}} story ''ComicBook/SupermanRedSon'', the Soviet Union expands into a global empire under Superman's Big-Brother style leadership, who creates a totalitarian "utopia" to protect humanity from itself. [[spoiler:After Superman's "death" it is replaced by Lex Luthor's [[AmericaTakesOverTheWorld Global United States]].]]
32	[[/folder]]
33
34	[[folder:Film]]
35	* ''Film/RedDawn1984'' depicts a Soviet invasion of the United States, and a bunch of teens forming LaResistance. The backstory, outlined in the intro, has the USSR suffering the worst wheat harvest since the Holodomor and sending troops into Poland to put down an anti-communist revolt, Cuba and Nicaragua leading communist revolutionaries across Central America and Mexico, and a Green government in West Germany demanding the withdrawal of American nuclear weapons and eventually leading to collapse of NATO and mainland Western Europe declaring neutrality. WorldWarIII sees Soviet troops push up the Great Plains from Mexico (with help from their Latin American allies) and cross the Bering Strait into Alaska. The UK and China support the US, but are just barely hanging on, with it being strongly implied that China has taken a nuclear pasting for its trouble.
36	[[/folder]]
37
38	[[folder:Literature]]
39	* Exploited but ultimately subverted in the ''Literature/EndersShadow'' series. Achilles, looking to TakeOverTheWorld, sees Russia returning to militarism and allies himself with them promised to make them a great empire. While Russia does increase in power under his command, including forming a New Warsaw Pact, Achilles has his eye on bigger fish, and sells them out to trade himself over to India, and then to China. In the end he's defeated and a global union is formed instead to command the world.
40	* In the ''Literature/DanteValentine'' novels the Russian-derived Putchkin Alliance is one of the setting's two {{Space Filling Empire}}s, controlling most of Asia. (The apparently American-derived Hegemony controls the rest.)
41	* ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'': One of the world's [[SpaceFillingEmpire three superpowers]] is Eurasia, the Russian-derived successor state that controls the former Soviet Union and continental Europe (while UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} and UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} are part of Oceania alongside UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}, the South Pacific, the Americas, and UsefulNotes/{{Africa}} south of [[UsefulNotes/RepublicOfTheCongo Brazzaville]]). They are allied with Oceania against Eastasia until Oceania betrays them by teaming up with Eastasia against Eurasia. Apparently practices "Neo-Bolshevism" and according to the propaganda of Oceania is currently leading a campaign to conquer all of Africa. This is a subversion, since neither Eurasia nor any of the other two superstates really desire world domination, only to control their own peoples.
42	* In the future history presented in ''Literature/CitiesInFlight'', Russia made peace with the (by then just as oppressive) USA in the early 21st century. When the American president was assassinated, the Russian premier declared himself ruler of both countries. The resulting empire grew to become a world government, known as the Bureaucratic State.
43	* ''The Gladiator'', one of the novels in Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''Literature/CrosstimeTraffic'' series, is set in Italy after the Soviet Union [[AlternateHistory won the Cold War]] and the whole planet became communist.
44	* The infamous ''KD Rebels'' from white supremacist David Lane (yes something similar to ''Literature/TheTurnerDiaries'' but less famous) has its last chapter named "From Russia, with love" as white nationalists took over Russia and then start conquering The West, naturally prompting the UndefeatableLittleVillage of the American neo-nazis to happily support them.
45	* In Fyodor Berezin's ''Red Stars'' books, a parallel world has the USSR becoming extremely powerful after a very different UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo, steadily conquering more territories and pushing the US back. By the early 21st century, the majority of the world is controlled by the Soviets, with only the US itself remaining free, although under tyrannical martial law. Nukes (mostly tactical) have been used freely during the not-Cold War, but that had the side effect of making everyone less twitchy on the red "launch everything" button. Apparently, all it took was for Hitler to delay Barbarossa by a month, allowing Stalin to betray him first. When our world's powers learn of the existence of that reality, they've horrified (yes, Russia included) and [[spoiler:try to trigger a global nuclear exchange in the other reality to wipe it out]].
46	[[/folder]]
47
48	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
49	* ''Series/{{Amerika}}'' is a miniseries set some years after the Soviets have taken over the United States and installed a puppet government. [[WorldBuilding References to other parts of the world]] indicate the Soviets are firmly in charge elsewhere as well, with the Warsaw Pact stretching all of Europe and China ceding Manchuria to the USSR.
50	* ''Series/{{Sliders}}'': The pilot episode involves an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union took over most of the world, including the United States. When asked, the locals explain that it all started when the US lost UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar, and the Domino Theory became reality.
51	[[/folder]]
52
53	[[folder:Video Games]]
54	* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlertSeries'': The first game is set in an AlternateTimeline where Einstein uses time travel to prevent Hitler's rise to power, leading to a Soviet conquest of Europe. Later games see the Soviets attempt to take their conquest global.
55	* ''VideoGame/EmpireEarth'': The game's Russian campaign is set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture where the paramilitary group Novaya Russia seizes power and begins a war of expansion against their neighbors. Helped by robotic troops and the US's isolationism, they're able to conquer Asia, Europe, and Africa, and start moving on Cuba when a disillusioned soldier defects to the US and [[spoiler:travels back in time to prevent the fascist regime from ever rising, only to find that future soldiers already got there and need to be eliminated with inferior modern troops.]]
56	* ''VideoGame/RiseOfNations'': The expansion pack ''Thrones and Patriots'' has a UsefulNotes/ColdWar campaign where you can diverge heavily from history to ensure that the Soviets dominate the globe.
57	* The first ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIII'' campaign has the Russian Empire [[SecretHistory secretly allying]] with the illuminati-like Circle of Ossus and planning a large invasion of North America while Britain and France are fighting each other in the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar. [[spoiler:The invasion is stopped when [[GoingNative John Black]] triggers an avalanche that buries the Russian army. Unfortunately, at the cost of his own life. Luckily, [[SomeoneToRememberHimBy his beloved Nonahkee is already pregnant with his son Nathaniel]].]] The Russians later support the Circle's search for immortality in South America during the early 19th century Latin American wars of independence, as part of an implied plot to TakeOverTheWorld.
58	* In ''VideoGame/{{Endwar}}'', a potential outcome for World War III is Russia (bloated to a size and strength not seen since the Cold War by the oil crisis - they own most of the world's remaining oil) defeating the United States and the [[UnitedEurope European Federation]] to become the sole remaining superpower on Earth.
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	[[folder:Web Original]]
62	* ''Literature/FearLoathingAndGumboOnTheCampaignTrailSeventyTwo'', a story from Platform/AlternateHistoryDotCom, accomplishes this by reversing the Soviet Union's fall. Influenced by a clique of Western-trained socialist economists, the USSR starting in TheSeventies embraces an "MBA communism" similar to the reforms carried out in our own history by China, with much the same result (i.e. economic liberalization and growth while retaining an authoritarian government), helped by the exploitation of its vast natural resources to buy favor in Western Europe. The US, meanwhile, endures economic and political strife during that decade before being taken over by far-right corporate plutocrats in TheEighties, and quickly finds itself succumbing to the same pressures that brought down the Soviets in our own history: economic mismanagement at home (in this case by {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s instead of [[ObstructiveBureaucrat bureaucratic central planners]]) leads to a collapse in living standards for working-class Americans, and the fact that the US in this timeline ''won'' UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar leads to a bad case of [[{{Pride}} victory disease]] as it engages in budget-busting military adventurism on multiple continents that only gives Western Europe more reason to leave NATO and engage in their own ''detente'' with Moscow. As [[FallenStatesOfAmerica the US plunges into chaos]] by the end of the '80s, the Soviet Union emerges as the world's sole superpower.
63	* This is what Webcomic/BillNyeTheRussianSpy wants.
64	** His feline assistant, Nermal, also purrs when he thinks of this.
65	[[/folder]]
66
67	[[folder:Western Animation]]
68	* The ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "The Best Christmas Story Never Told" achieves this via the ButterflyOfDoom, in a kind of Soviet counterpart to GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel. After traveling back in time to [[TheSeventies 1970s]] Hollywood, Stan meets a young Creator/MartinScorsese and ends up convincing him to quit drugs. In effect, Scorsese never makes ''Film/TaxiDriver''. Without ''Taxi Driver'', John Hinckley Jr never becomes obsessed with Creator/JodieFoster and thus never tries to assassinate UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan in order to impress her. Without the sympathy vote that would've occurred as a result of the assassination attempt, Reagan loses re-election to Walter Mondale, who hands over control of the country to the Soviet Union. Everything gets reset to a CloseEnoughTimeline at the end of the episode, though.
69	* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Petey IV", Vladimir Putin is shown to be controlling the entire politics of the United States with simply pushing buttons at home on a machine that can manipulate US election turnouts and even the NFL. Roger Goodall is simply a puppet of Putin's.
70	[[/folder]]

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